Tuesday, July 7, 2015

This has been one of our top five weeknight soups for the past three years (thanks, Sheri!).

For some reason, we didn't break it out to serve at a dinner party until just a couple of weeks ago. One guest had been suffering from a terrible cough and I thought chicken soup was in order.

It's a humble chicken soup and – if you already have leftover chicken and rice – it comes together very quickly indeed.

But the way it tastes . . . It's kind of like the thick soup version of a really good plate of creamy-but-slightly-sour coconut curry on rice. It tastes comforting but exotic to my European-Canadian palate and I love it.

P.S. I think you might be able to guess what our new favourite quick dinner-party dish is. And if you're wondering about making this in the summer: it's a dream. You don't need the stove on for very long, and everyone likes slightly spicy food in the heat.

Set a big heavy pot over medium heat. Heat the olive oil, then stir in the carrot, onion and red bell pepper. Cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the fish sauce, curry paste and brown sugar. Cook until the curry paste is incorporated, about 2 – 3 minutes.

Add the chicken broth and coconut milk and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium and cook for 15 – 20 minutes, until the vegetables are tender.

Stir in the chicken, rice and lime juice. Bring it back to a gentle simmer. Taste for seasoning. You might need a bit more curry paste or a little salt here (although the fish sauce can be very salty), or maybe the juice of another lime to perk it up. Stir in most of the cilantro. Serve with a bit of fresh cilantro on top.

* I use the Thai Kitchen brand. It's not hot at all, and I sometimes add more at the end.
** I like Jasmine or Japanese rice here

Monday, June 29, 2015

This past weekend, we had the kind of summer weather where all you can do is tape old sheets over your unadorned windows and sit, panting and sipping sun tea, because you are just too exhausted from all that effort.

Luckily, on Sunday, we managed to escape our dark sauna (that is, otherwise lovely 103-year-old home where most windows are painted shut) to visit our friends and sit in their shady backyard while they plied us with drinks and flourless chocolate cake with saskatoon berry compote and ice cream.

When we arrived, Niall had the drinks set out on the counter, and even a little list of all our options.

Megan pointed out the Martini Rosso bottle and said how her German friend had introduced her to it years ago. It was a simple, squat bottle that looked unmistakably Italian. Who was I to resist?

Niall mixed it with 7UP, dropped in a few ice cubes, and my drink was ready.

It was beguiling. I thought I could taste herbs and maybe fruit. Even with the 7UP, it wasn't too sweet, just cool and refreshing. This, I thought, would certainly help me survive the sauna that is our home.

It turns out that Martini Rosso is a sweet vermouth that has been made in Turin, Italy since at least 1863. (So at least history is on my side, although I'm not sure if 7UP has such an illustrious pedigree.) It's a kind of fortified wine with herbs and barks and spices to flavour it. The nice thing for a hot day is that it also only has 15% alcohol content. Mixed with a good amount of 7UP, that means it's refreshing instead of walloping.

I'm now on the look out for my own bottle. We often have ginger ale at home, so I think I'll try mixing that in next. I hope you, too, can have many cool drinks on hot summer days.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Here's what I like about this recipe. You blend some peas – and hold some peas back – with yogurt, olive oil and garlic until it makes a smooth, pale-green sauce. Which is something I never would have thought of.

Get out your food processor. Blend the yogurt, 90 ml. (6 tbsp.) olive oil, the garlic and 100 g. (2/3 c.) peas. Process until it's a consistent pale green and pour into a large mixing bowl.

Boil the pasta in a large pot of salted water. Cook until just al dente. Drain.

While the pasta is cooking, heat a small frying pan over medium heat. Warm the remaining olive oil, then add the pine nuts and chile flakes. Cook for about 4 minutes – keep an eye on it to make sure neither the nuts nor the chile flakes burns. When the pine nuts are golden, take the pan off the heat.

Cook the remaining peas in water for a couple minutes in the microwave until they're not raw, but just slightly cooked. Drain.

Pour a bit of the drained pasta into the big bowl with the green sauce and mix. (If you add it all at once, the sauce could separate.) Repeat with the rest of the pasta. Stir in the warm peas, basil, feta and 1 tsp. kosher salt. Gently toss. Put into serving dishes, and spoon a bit of oil and pine nuts over top. Serve.

* This is a huge variation. If you've got tons of basil growing in your garden, do use the higher amount. But if you have to buy very expensive basil at the grocery store, it's still very good with the smaller amount.

I've just updated hop & go fetch it with my favourite places to eat in Halifax, Charlottetown and Calgary. Scroll down to find the province and city you're looking for – there are sections for British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

It is crisp and cheesy with little nubbins of steel-cut oats, and I ate the last one this morning and I'm going to have to fix that soon. Very soon.

The recipe comes from Lucy Waverman, who says she first tried a cheesy oatcake at a farm store on the Isle of Mull. She recommends Mull cheddar, but, of course, sharp Canadian cheddar works, too.

The technique is ingenious: mix the oats, flour and cheese, and then drizzle melted butter and water in. At that point, it looks like wet oatmeal.

But after 10 or 15 minutes, the quick oats have soaked some water in and everything starts to come together into dough. To cut them into circles, I used the biscuit cutter my Scottish aunt gave me when I was 14.

In the oven, the oatcakes don't spread, but instead crisp up and puff just a bit. Once they have cooled, they are firm but a little crumbly, and all together the nicest mid-morning snack you could have. Or mid-afternoon.

P.S. If you're curious about the plate, it's my great-grandmother Henrietta McGaw's wedding china. She was from another Scottish island, the Isle of Skye.

Stir both kinds of oats, flour(s), salt and cheddar together in a large bowl. Drizzle the melted butter and water over top. Stir until well mixed. Let stand 10 – 15 minutes, until it's firmed up and can come together. If it still feels too crumbly, add a little more water and stir it in.

Flour your working surface with wheat flour or, if gluten-free, sweet rice flour. Get out a 2 1/2 inch cutter and rolling pin. Knead the dough into a ball. Roll out with floured rolling pin until about 1/4 inch thick. Flour cutter and cut out biscuits. Put biscuits on baking sheets. Bake 25 – 30 minutes, until they have a little colour and are lightly golden around the edges. Let cool on baking sheet.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Over the past ten days, we have made three different kinds of chicken soup.

We've made them all to help cure a dreadful cough that's kept us up at night and breaking into hacking fits during the day. Oh, and because chicken soup tastes good.

This is soup number two. (I might also tell you about soup number three soon.)

I've been making it for at least five years now, ever since I saw Giada waxing on about it in her pretty way while I was on a plane to Toronto. I'd never seen Giada before, and the recipe struck me so much that I bought her cookbook when I got home again. For this soup alone, the book is worth it.

While I believe in the power of chicken bones in broth, I also get tired and lazy when I have the plague. Giada calls for a rotisserie chicken, which – if you can brave going to the grocery store while you're having a coughing fit at the very busiest time of day – makes it dead easy. (Just pack a couple cough candies for the trip.)

We usually shred half the chicken for this soup, and shred the other half for the freezer to ponder for a future meal. Otherwise, it's simple. I added the step of frying the onion, carrot and celery because I think it helps the soup come together better, but after that, all you do is add broth and lemon juice, and eventually cook some broken-up spaghetti.

It might seem odd to top a chicken soup with parmesan cheese, but – trust me – it is lovely and salty against the freshness of the lemon in the soup. Altogether: very pleasing and welcome at this invalid's dinner table.

Heat a Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Melt the oil and butter. Add the onion, carrot and celery and fry until somewhat softened and the onions are glossy and starting to look clear, about 10 minutes. Stir every so often.

Add the broth, lemon juice and bay leaf. Bring to a boil. Cover and let simmer until the vegetables are tender, 10 – 15 minutes. Add the spaghetti and cook until the noodles are cooked through, about 10 minutes.

Add the chicken and heat through. Stir the parsley in. Taste for salt, knowing you will also add salty cheese to your bowls of soup soon.

Ladle into bowls, and let everyone top their bowl with a good helping of cheese. Eat!

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

This is the kind of food that satisfies all my cravings, and doesn't even have a speck of butter or cheese. What it does have is peanut butter, which seems to make everything – sweet or savoury –much better.

Deb with Smitten Kitchen calls this "Single Girl's Dinner." I could imagine it would be good eaten alone, since it tastes much like take out (but about a zillion times better). But I can't call it that because Scott likes it just as much as I do.

That's a good thing, because we served it for his birthday last year and it was great party food that stretched and stretched (along with some Mexican meatballs in tomato-chipotle sauce) for seconds and thirds and even leftovers.

The peanut dressing alone, with ginger and soy and rice vinegar and honey, is the kind of thing where you feel compelled to either lick the mixing bowl or get out a spatula to get every last drop.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

If you come visit us over a weekend, we will probably make you buttermilk pancakes for breakfast.

Or maybe buttermilk waffles. They're both from the same master recipe and equally good but completely different.

If I'm feeling fancy, I will find some fruit and carefully cut it into paper-thin slices.

When the pancakes are crisping and bubbling on the griddle, I'll lay that paper-thin slice of fruit right onto the pancake. It gets a little caramelized when the pancake is flipped and the whole shebang ends up feeling and tasting like a proper weekend breakfast.

These are slices of apple-pear that someone has been keeping in cold storage just for me to put on pancakes. (Also to add to fennel salad.)

The pancake recipe comes from The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham and the idea for adding sliced fruit (like peaches! and nectarines!) comes from Smitten Kitchen.

Buttermilk pancakes with apple-pear tops for the weekend. Only three more days . . .

These buttermilk pancakes with apple-pear tops are served with a
dollop of yogurt and saskatoon-currant preserves.

Beat the egg yolks. Whisk them into the buttermilk and plain yogurt. Set aside.

Mix the flour(s), sugar, salt and baking soda together well. Add to the yolk mixture and mix well. Stir the melted butter in. Set aside.

Beat the egg whites until stiff but still moist. Fold them into the batter.

Lightly grease your griddle with butter. Dollop batter onto the griddle to make pancakes that are about 3 inches in diameter. Carefully place thinly-sliced fruit right on the batter. Look for little bubbles to show the pancakes have set and flip them over for another minute or so. Keep warm in the oven until ready to serve.